


Indelible

by brynnmck



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-15
Updated: 2008-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Vecchio gets drunk at Fraser's wedding.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indelible

**Author's Note:**

> Mention of Fraser/Janet Morse. 
> 
> Written for stop_drop_porn, from the prompt "spring tune-up." Enormous thanks to china_shop for a speedy and insightful beta, to [](http://catwalksalone.livejournal.com/profile)[**catwalksalone**](http://catwalksalone.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading, and to [](http://hyzenthlay26.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hyzenthlay26.livejournal.com/)**hyzenthlay26** for being the ideal combination of fangirl and Chicago encyclopedia. :) Any remaining mistakes are mine. Also, Kowalski's views on the designated hitter do not reflect those of the author. ;)

Vecchio gets drunk at Fraser's wedding.

Not sloppy drunk, though. Not making embarrassing toasts and falling into the cake drunk, like people always do in movies. He just sits at the suckers'—sorry, _wedding party_ —table next to Ray, ignoring the way Janet's giggly sister (and how it is possible that _that_ girl shares DNA with Ms. My Other Gun Is a Rocket Launcher is a mystery Ray's still trying to unravel) is hanging on his arm like her left boob is incapable of supporting itself and needs his help, and he gets quietly, steadily, resolutely drunk.

And all Ray can do is watch, and distract the sister when he can, and try like hell not to think about how Vecchio's wrist would taste, right there where the olive skin meets the crisp white cuff of his tux shirt. Which is something he really should not be thinking about, not just because Vecchio's his partner and his friend but also because it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what might inspire Vecchio to get drunk at Fraser's wedding. And if all of Ray's not-thinking is adding up to something a hell of a lot more like thinking, well, no one has to be the wiser, and he'll figure it out later. Back in Chicago, maybe, where the thin Canadian air isn't messing with him.

Fraser and Janet are busy making rounds, cutting cakes, doing all the bride and groom stuff—even Fraser's had a few sips of champagne tonight, face flushed and eyes laughing and four, count 'em, _four_ whole hairs out of place, and the world isn't ending after all. So what with all of that, it's quite a while before they make their way to the suckers' table. And Ray's got to give Vecchio credit, he doesn't let on, just gives Fraser a big, warm smile and a hug that looks like he means it.

"Congratulations, Benny."

"Thank you, Ray." Fraser's own smile is so bright it almost hurts to look at him. Ray's never seen Fraser like this, ever, even when he was up to his ass in authentic Canadian snow for the first time in years. And it's kind of hard for Ray to see it now and not wish just a _little_ bit that he was the cause of it. But he and Fraser made their peace long ago somewhere between Franklin's thumb and his pinky, and it's just a vague twinge, really, an old clean scar, and Ray's grinning.

He steps forward to collect his own hug. "So you made it through. All downhill from here," he assures them both, shoving his hands in his pockets. Janet's glowing, too, all the more gorgeous for the fact that she's probably got at least one weapon stashed in her garter.

"It means so much to me to have you both here." Fraser says. "You were, indeed, the best men I could have asked for."

Ray yanks his mind back from its happy contemplation of Janet's garter. "Wouldn't have missed it."

"Hell no," Vecchio agrees cheerfully.

Ray can't help admiring Vecchio's poker face, which isn't nearly this good when he's actually _playing_ poker—Ray's lost count of the number of games they've played in the year they've been partners, and at this point Ray's down a few toothpicks and an oil change and that's about it. If Vecchio was this good all the time, he'd own Ray's apartment by now, maybe his firstborn kid's apartment.

"And of course I very much hope that you'll—" Fraser starts, and then someone fires up the bagpipes and he and Janet just barely have time for one more round of hugs before they get dragged away. And Vecchio goes back to drinking and Ray goes back to trying to keep his hands to himself and it's like Canadian wedding torture or something until finally Fraser and Janet disappear in a swirl of white and red and it's over, and all Ray has to do is make sure Vecchio doesn't fall and break something important on the way back to his room.

He's five doors down from Ray and he makes three failed attempts to get the keycard in the slot before Ray—who is mostly, miserably sober, because _one_ of them should be—rolls his eyes and grabs it from him.

"Beautiful ceremony," Vecchio murmurs dreamily, leaning with his back against the wall next to the door while Ray fumbles with the lock.

"Yep," Ray mumbles. Stupid keycards, he hates these fucking things. Middle of nowhere, Canada, and Fraser found them the one hotel that _doesn't_ have actual metal keys— _"Aha,"_ he says triumphantly, as the tiny light blinks green, and he shoves the door open.

Vecchio's bedside light is on, a dog-eared paperback lying on the end-table next to it, his favorite brown leather shoes shiny and neat in their spot just inside the door. It's just a hotel room, but there's something homey and inviting about it that makes Ray's chest hurt, and when he looks over, Vecchio's eyes are huge and dark.

"Tux looks good on you, Kowalski." His voice is like the first burn of whiskey. "Should've known it'd look good on you."

"Thanks," Ray says warily. He tugs at his already-dangling bowtie, hardly knowing what he's doing. "You should—"

"Hey," Vecchio interrupts him, long fingers gripping Ray's jacket along his forearm. Ray's heart stutters and then starts racing, and Vecchio leans in, slow and heavy-eyed, and it's been a long damn night—long damn _year_ —and a tux sure as hell looks good on Vecchio, too, and Ray's just on the edge of falling when something in him shouts _not the fucking rebound guy_ and he moves back.

Vecchio makes a startled, almost indignant noise and barely catches himself on the doorframe.

"So," Ray mutters, his eyes trained on the scuffed metal of the scratch plate, "see you at the airport," and he somehow manages to get himself down the hall and into his own room before his body tells his brain to go fuck itself.

Then he stands there in the dark with his back against the door and the heels of his hands pressed hard into his eyes, chanting, "Bad idea bad idea bad _fucking_ idea," over and over again until he can actually bring himself to care about that.

 

*****

 

"Where'd you get your ink?" Vecchio asks him a couple of weeks later over their traditional Friday pastrami-on-rye at Domini's.

"'Ink'?" Ray repeats. He can't help smirking. "Wow. And the mustard on the chin really adds to the hard-ass image, by the way, nice touch."

"I got a few other choice words for you, Kowalski," Vecchio replies, slightly muffled by his napkin, "but this is a family establishment so I'll just let you fill in the blanks."

"You're a credit to the uniform," Ray tells him. "If we wore uniforms. Which I thank God we do not, because those collars are the most uncomfortable collars since—" _since serge_ , he's about to say, but Vecchio's smiling and things are just getting back to normal, at least as far as Vecchio seems to know, and Ray's not about to tip the balance. "Since the suit my ma bought me in second grade," he finishes instead. "Hundred percent wool. In Chicago. In the summer."

Vecchio laughs. "If I didn't have a healthy respect for your ma's ability to kick my ass, I'd be questioning her judgment, but as it is, I'll just say that I'm sure she had her reasons."

Ray catches himself thinking about how Vecchio has a really nice laugh, and dammit, this is exactly why things don't seem to be swinging back to normal for him. This was a hell of a lot easier when his… whatever-this-is, this _thing_ about Vecchio was background noise, something he could bury under Bulls games and chasing down suspects and bad TV (Vecchio will watch _anything_ made in the seventies, no matter how styrofoam the sets, and Ray is right there with him). But since Fraser's wedding, Ray's had this _thing_ humming away in his head all the time, and he is tired to death of his own stupid insistence on wanting what he knows he can't have. He has been there and done that and woven the damn t-shirt out of smooth Gucci silk and Arctic hare fur, and that is _plenty_ ; no need to stick around and round out the trilogy. Which is all good and mature and he should be patting himself on the back for recognizing his own negative patterns and self-actualizing to resonate them, or whatever the hell his precinct-assigned shrink used to say, and the only hitch in the plan is that he just. Can't. _Stop._

He forces a grin, takes a bite of his sandwich and a long swallow of water to help it down. "You're a wise man."

"I mean it, though," Vecchio says a few seconds later. "Where'd you get it?"

"Why?" Ray asks around a mouthful of pastrami. "You're not exactly the tattoo type, Vecchio." Not that he's been thinking about Vecchio's type at all. Especially not alone on his couch at night with his hand moving hard and good on his cock, panting with the thought of Vecchio's mouth on him, Vecchio's voice in his ear, Vecchio naked and gasping under him—while across town Vecchio's probably been thinking the same thing about Fraser.

That would just be masochistic.

"What do you know about my type, Kowalski?" Vecchio's head is tilted to the side, a look in his eyes that makes the blood rush to Ray's face. Shit, this is getting ridiculous.

"Chicago Tattooing," he blurts out. "Shop down on Belmont. Good work, decent prices; the guy's uncle's with the 1-9. I'll get his number for you if you want." His fingers are in his napkin now, shredding a tiny pile of white onto the table. "Hey, you about done, there? We should get back."

Vecchio doesn't say anything for what feels like several thousand thuds of Ray's heart, and then he sighs. "Yeah, I'm done." He pushes his chair back and tosses a twenty on the table; it's his week to pay. "Look, I'm gonna take a walk, okay? I'll see you back at the station. Don't forget your coat."

Ray's mouth curves in spite of himself; he's lost more than a few jackets to various bars and diners, a casualty of his occasional lack of focus when he's thinking of other things, such as how it is possible for Vecchio to defend the designated hitter when it is _clearly_ a blight on the fine sport of baseball as God and Abner Doubleday intended it. But the smile fades quickly and he sits there for a long time after Vecchio's gone, spinning his cold coffee mug with one hand and staring into the cracked linoleum of the tabletop like he's gonna find a rewind button in there somewhere.

Finally, when Becky the very cute waitress is starting to offer him refills with something less like service and more like exasperation, and when he can practically feel Welsh's blood pressure rising from several blocks away, he shoves back from the table, gathers up his embarrassingly large mound of shredded napkins, and makes for the door.

He's halfway there when he hears Vecchio's voice in his head, and he has to go back for his coat.

 

*****

 

"Hey," Vecchio says as he passes. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Ray answers breathlessly, hands braced on his knees. He's sweaty and exhausted from one round too many with the heavy bag, and Vecchio's on his way out the door for the Wednesday night pickup basketball game. It's been a little strained between them, but basically all right, and Ray's watching him go and trying to focus on something other than the strong, graceful slope of his shoulders under the sleeveless t-shirt, and then he sees it—a telltale white flash of gauze and tape.

"Hey," he says, lurching toward Vecchio while his abused muscles protest. "What happened to you?" He reaches out toward Vecchio's back, swallowing hard against the quick flash of heat when his fingers brush skin.

"Nothing," Vecchio says, his ears going red. "Just… called your guy, you know, and got a…"

"Tattoo?" Ray finishes incredulously, surprised out of his lust.

"Yeah," Vecchio says, _"ink,"_ with a half-hesitant conspiratorial smile that Ray returns without thinking.

"Wow." Ray whistles between his teeth. "Gotta admit, I didn't think you'd go through with it. What's it of?" He angles around behind Vecchio, trying to catch a glimpse.

"It's an artist's rendering of none of your damn business," Vecchio tells him, "now back off, I'm gonna be late for the game." And he bolts out the door.

But his tone seemed deliberately teasing and light, and Ray's still grinning as he heads home, a whole reel of new images tumbling through his brain that night: patterns sprawling over Vecchio's skin, shadow and warmth, clean lines and full colors, begging for Ray's fingers to map them. (Yeah, so he still jerks off to thoughts of Vecchio; he jerks off to Rita Hayworth, too, sometimes, and Steve McQueen, and he's not getting involved with either of them, so he gets a free pass, dammit.) He comes so hard he can't breathe for a couple of seconds, lies shaking in his bed and falls asleep with possibilities still tugging at his mind.

It's a welcome distraction from the deeper want, and Ray jumps eagerly into the game of it, because Vecchio refuses to tell him and it's not like Ray can be camping out in the locker room, seeing as his fellow officers tend to frown on that and besides, it's about as subtle as a freight train. By the time Ray eventually catches a glimpse, the tattoo is pretty much healed, flat and black and shiny just inside Vecchio's left shoulder blade.

The image is stylized, but Ray figures a wolf print doesn't look all that different from a half-wolf print, and as soon as he sees it, it's like diving into a glacial lake. Jesus. _Jesus,_ he is so fucking stupid.

"What?" Vecchio asks from the corner where he's changing, a defensive edge in his voice.

"Nothing," Ray says, "nothing," straps on the gloves he just finished taking off and pounds the bag until he can't think anymore.

 

*****

 

He tries to keep things the same after that, tries to shut the door and go back to the way they were before, but it's useless. He's pissy and sharp even when he doesn't mean to be, and Vecchio's no picnic, either, right up in Ray's face anytime he comes anywhere near picking a fight, which is basically anytime he's awake. Their solve rate drops like a brick and Welsh looks genuinely concerned under all the yelling. Even when they'd first been partnered together, they'd never fought like this, because then it had just been half-blind free swinging and now they've got a year's worth of buttons to push.

It's miserable and Ray's miserable and he's sort of starting to realize that even aside from the desperate simmering unfulfilled lust thing, somewhere in all of those Cubs games and bad TV marathons, Vecchio had slid into the best-friend-in-residence slot that had been gaping empty since Ray'd gotten back from Canada. Somehow he'd become the focal point of half of Ray's stories and the smile on the other side of most of his jokes (or, more often, the rolled eyes on the other side of his jokes, tomato, tomahto, and Ray gives as good as he gets), and losing that is worse than Vecchio still being in love with Fraser.

So Ray feels like he's walking around all the time with his shoes on the wrong feet, but every time he tries to fix it, he just ends up fucking it up worse because he _wants_ and he can't _not_ want, and it's driving him nuts. It goes on like that for a couple of endless weeks, and then one Friday morning Ray's in early because he spent the night swearing at his ceiling instead of sleeping, and Vecchio wanders in, too, looking pale and tired with two cups steaming in his hands. The fancy espresso he likes, not the sludge from the break room. Ray smiles a little as he takes the one that Vecchio offers him.

"Supposed to be nice this weekend," Vecchio says after they've sipped in silence for a few minutes. Spring has been in like a lion, dumping rain and wind and the occasional freaky hailstorm, just for grins. Ray's been alternately pissed off and weirdly, vindictively pleased that the weather is echoing his shitty mood.

"Yeah?" he says. He's not sure where Vecchio's going with this.

"Yeah." Vecchio's leaning against the desk across from Ray, eyes focused on his cup; all Ray can see are long eyelashes. "I thought maybe we could work on the GTO some." And then, while Ray's inhaling to tell him where he can shove his helpful suggestions, Vecchio looks up. "Not that she needs work, okay? Just a tune-up, clean out some of the winter gunk." He sounds… burned out, somehow, too quiet, and Ray bites his lip. How the hell had they gotten here, anyway?

"Yeah, okay," he says. He takes a long drink, focusing on the warm, smooth slide of the liquid down his throat. "That'd be… that'd be good. Thanks."

Vecchio's mouth curves, sweet and almost hesitant in a way that makes Ray grip the arms of his chair to keep himself in his seat. But he manages, and Vecchio keeps smiling, and that's good, that's worth it.

"Okay," says Vecchio. "Good. Okay. So…" He rolls a chair over next to Ray's. "What'd you find out about Robertshaw?"

 

*****

 

_Be cool,_ Ray tells himself on Saturday morning as he walks the couple of blocks to the rented garage where he keeps his baby—street parking is a cold bitch, he'd learned that one the hard way. _Be cool, be cool, be cool, be cool—_

—and then he walks around the corner and sees Vecchio already waiting for him, leaning against the garage in the morning sunlight. He's wearing faded-but-well-fitted jeans and a blue button-down shirt hanging open over his sleeveless undershirt, and Ray is suddenly a lot of things, but cool is most definitely not one of them.

"Hey," Vecchio says. "You're late."

"You're early," Ray shoots back, and he has no idea whether that's actually true, but any words that come out of his mouth at this point that _aren't_ "I want to make you come so hard you can't see straight for a week" are kind of an achievement.

"C'mon." Vecchio tosses a rag at him. "Let's get our hands dirty."

 _Asshole_ , Ray thinks darkly as he jams the key in the padlock on the door.

As advertised, they seem to be heading into their annual week of decent spring weather. Ray figures it for sixty, sixty-five degrees, with just enough clouds to keep the sun from getting mean, but even so, after an hour or two, they're both sweating in the cramped garage. Vecchio's overshirt ends up hanging across a chair in the corner, and between the streaks of grease on his arms and the way the moisture is gathering in the hollow of his neck and the way he always seems to be right there with whatever tool Ray needs, Ray's revved up and this close to losing it before noon. When Vecchio reaches across the engine for a ratchet and his hand brushes Ray's for what has to be the fiftieth time that day, something inside Ray snaps and he steps back, both palms out, narrowly missing whacking his head on the top of the hood.

"I can't," he says. "Okay? I just—I _can't._ "

Vecchio glances up, not quite as much confusion on his face as Ray would've expected. "Can't what?"

"You know exactly can't what," Ray retorted. "You can't _do_ this to me, Vecchio, and fuck you for trying."

"Hey." Vecchio straightens, wiping his hands on the rag, his face flushed with more than the heat, and maybe Ray isn't the only one who's been getting revved up. "You think this is _fun_ for me, being so damn desperate for the pleasure of your company that I don’t even—" He stops, then rushes on, "You think this is some kind of a _game_?"

"Well, what the hell else would it be?" Ray can feel his face twist up with the effort of hiding his hurt. _So damn desperate_ , but— "A _wolf_ print," he sneers. "Christ. I'm not stupid, Vecchio, I can figure out what that means."

Vecchio steps in close, speaks low and harsh into the charged space between them. "All right, listen up, because I'm not gonna say this twice. I know you're not stupid, but maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are, either, because what that tattoo _does_ mean, Kowalski, is that the more time I spend around you, the more I need something to remind me that it's a really fucking stupid idea to fall for your partner."

And there are _probably_ some things Vecchio could've said that would have surprised Ray more than that, but right now he can't think of a single one, and he just gapes for a minute, jaw hanging down and everything.

"You mean—then you—" he manages eventually, brilliantly. It's hard to make his mouth work right.

"Yeah," Vecchio says, watching him carefully, the doomed last-ditch look on his face fading slowly into the same kind of shell shock that's got Ray frozen. Another long pause. "So—does that—"

 _"Jesus,"_ Ray interrupts, when his screaming nerve endings finally get the attention of his brain, "fucking—" and then he grabs Vecchio's shirt in both hands and hauls him in for a kiss.

He's sure as hell not having any trouble making his mouth work now, and Vecchio doesn't seem to be, either; they get from zero to sixty—hell, zero to Mach _five_ —before Ray can even really process what's happening. By that time he's got Vecchio crowded up against the bumper, his hands up under the loose fabric of Vecchio's shirt, the sweet buzz of friction against his palms as they slide over the hair on Vecchio's chest and stomach. And there's want, hell yeah, the way his blood rushes through his veins like even his _platelets_ want to be as close to Vecchio as possible, but it's the relief that makes him light-headed, washing over him like a bright warm wave until he's clutching at Vecchio's shoulders to keep steady. Vecchio, meanwhile, has his hands down the back of Ray's jeans and presses until their cocks angle hard together, and if he keeps that up, this is gonna be over in about three seconds flat.

"Wait—" Ray gasps, "c'mere," dragging Vecchio to the back of the garage so the propped-up hood of the car gives them line-of-sight privacy, anyway, even if they can't do much about the acoustics. But that's as much as Ray can care about, as much as he can wait, and when they catch their balance in the small space Ray gives Vecchio one more long, breathless kiss and then turns him around, bending him over across the trunk.

Vecchio doesn't flinch, just braces himself against the glossy black surface, fingertips flat so he won't scratch the finish. Ray half-laughs because, yeah, of _course_ Vecchio gets that, and shoves Vecchio's shirt aside, falls against Vecchio's back so he can close his mouth over the tattoo. He takes as much time as he can, licking and sucking, tracing the faint ridges of it with his tongue, tasting sweat and Vecchio. Vecchio hisses—the skin must still be sensitive—and moans low, grinding his ass against Ray's cock.

"Fuck, Kowalski, yeah—"

Ray groans and sucks harder, lets his eyes drift shut. He's been look-but-don't-touch for way too long and he wants to focus on everything else that he gets to have now, on the rough flex of Vecchio's back muscles against him, Vecchio's voice ragged and gasping his name, the sweet salt tang in his mouth and the crisp smell of Vecchio's laundry detergent mixing with musk and engine oil in his nose.

It's everything and it's too much and Ray wants more, _needs_ more, gropes blindly down the rigid slope of Vecchio's arm till he finds Vecchio's hand, splayed out against the hood, and slides his own fingers into the empty spots between Vecchio's. Vecchio's hand curls up into a fist, gripping Ray's tight, giving him leverage. Ray thrusts hard and Vecchio shoves back to meet him, matches his fast and desperate rhythm, and it's almost perfect, only missing the solid length of Vecchio's cock curving into Ray's hand, _yes_ , like that, smooth and hot in his fist, and Ray gasps against Vecchio's damp shoulder and sinks his teeth in, just a little, right _there_ on the unmarked skin above the tattoo, and Vecchio's whole body shudders and he spills warm over Ray's fingers, moaning, "Oh, God, yes, oh, fuck," and then Ray's orgasm rushes him from behind and leaves him bright and boneless, collapsed over Vecchio on the trunk of his car in a garage in the middle of a Saturday, his mouth slack over the tattoo.

 

*****

 

"All this time," Ray says later, sprawled on his couch with a mostly-empty carton of moo shu pork on the armrest next to him. "All this time, and you never said anything? What the _hell_ , Vecchio? "

"Why do you think I've been losing to you at cards?" Vecchio answers wryly. "The Bookman had a hell of a poker face, Kowalski, and so I did, too—I've just been using it to keep from letting on how bad I wanted you. Not much left over for Texas Hold 'Em."

Ray grins, but shakes his head. "That's not buddies."

Vecchio's shoulders lift defensively. "I didn't think you were interested!"

"Not _interested_?" Ray repeats, incredulous. "Jeez, Vecchio, you need a singing telegram or something? How many Friday nights do I spend with you? How many Tuesday nights, for that matter? Wednesday nights? Thursday mornings?"

"Hey." Vecchio spreads his arms wide, loose and relaxed like Ray hasn't seen him in weeks. "I worked with Fraser for two years, remember? Mr. 'I'm Not Gay, I Just Like To Breathe In Your Ear'? I got a little bit gun-shy."

Ray's watching him carefully, and there's some hurt, sure, but it's just a quick shadow, there and gone so fast that Ray would've missed it if he hadn't known what it felt like, himself.

"Yeah," he agrees, settling deeper into the curve of the couch, lazy with food and sex. "Fraser was, like, the _king_ of mixed signals. He made mixed signals like an Olympic sport."

"Amen," Vecchio says ruefully. "But. All's well that ends well, right?"

"I guess," Ray answers, smiling when Vecchio's knee nudges his. Then, more seriously, "I'm gonna be forty soon, Vecchio. I don't have time for this stuff. Next time you want something, just _ask_ , okay?"

And Ray half-expects Vecchio to turn it around on him, because after all, Ray hadn't exactly had all his cards on the table, either, but Vecchio just nods and scoots a little closer on the couch and says, "Okay." He sets aside his food carton and fixes Ray with a naked, smoldering stare. "I want to fuck you," he says quietly. "I want you inside me. I want to blow you—in your bed, in your car, up against a tree by the lake, in the bathroom at Wrigley, wherever you want. Want to suck you until you're begging me to let you come. I want to take you dancing. I want to make you breakfast. I want to make you breakfast, take you dancing, and _then_ fuck you." He reaches out, smoothes one hand up Ray's chest, over his thundering heart, never taking his eyes from Ray's. "Pretty much anything you can think of that you want, Kowalski, I want it, too." One side of his mouth curves. "Okay? That clear enough for you?"

There's a long, long silence, while Ray tries to remember how to breathe. Remember that he _needs_ to breathe. "Okay," he says finally. "Uh." He swallows hard. "Okay. Yeah. I think I got it." And then he swallows again, pulls together everything he's got into a slow, slow smile. "So," he says. "You wanna get started on some of that now?"

Vecchio laughs softly. "I thought you'd never ask," he says, and Ray's moo shu pork goes tumbling.

Much, _much_ later, they've finally made it to Ray's bed, and Ray's sore and sleepy and so happy it almost scares him. To ask for everything he wants and _get it_ is just… he's not sure how to deal with that.

Vecchio's almost asleep, humming contentedly while Ray's fingers trace over the tattoo in the near-dark, learning it by heart.

"Lone wolf's a myth, dumbass," Ray murmurs. "Wolves hunt in packs." He's not sure whether he wants Vecchio to hear him or not.

"Then maybe I'm not out a hundred bucks after all—maybe I chose the right thing," Vecchio mumbles back, his spine curving closer.

"Yeah," Ray says. His fingers keep moving, careful, steady, comforting. "Maybe you did."


End file.
